Friday Facts #254 - No research queue for you

[Chaoseed]

So, some objections to the research queue are that when you finish a research, that changes your priorities, you have to figure out what you can build now, you have to reevaluate the situation that you're in and see if you want to change what projects you're building and what you want to research next...But if you have to stop and rethink your strategy every 5 minutes, isn't that a more fundamental problem with the game, that you're just concealing by having to choose each individual research?

[maniak1349]

Research queue as you describe it - manually controllable queue in which you can add and rearrange only unlocked options - is kind of meh and will not bring much ease to players. I do agree with that and I'm ok with it being scraped.

The thing I did want to see in game though is kind of a smart research. So that player will be able to tell game two things:
- "I just want this research". Even if it's still locked. And the game will automatically do all the pre-required technologies one after another in order of availability and simplicity (green before blue etc.).
- "I just don't care much right now - do something". And the game will automatically do all the available researches in order of simplicity.

[eformo]

All the experience related items mentioned in the FFF post... Well, for those of us with over 1k hours in the game, yeah, none of those are pros.

I think this has more to do with not having to debug a feature, but heck, there's already a mod for this. I won't go purple in the face when I've been queuing up researches for the last 300 hours of gameplay already.

[HalfPastZulu]

Yeah not really happy about research queue being totally removed... Maybe disabled until you win your first game or something and then it becomes an option.

Also, I don't think you were approaching it correctly. Well, at least not the way I would approach it. Instead of having a queue like the one pictured in your example I would simply have a target or goal research. Lets take the current GUI as an example since I don't know how the new one will look. In the current GUI you have yellow red and green research squares. Green is researched already so we won't worry about those, If you click a yellow it researches that one thing and then stops to allow another research just like it does now. But if you choose a red one it will research all prerequisites first and then the item you selected and then stop.

To scrap the thing now after spending so much time on it seems like a waste and its a feature I really want.

I really don't know why game devs spend so much time on mods stuff. I hate using mods its always such a security risk.

There are many good legit mod makers out there but unfortunately there are just as many people making mods to hack players accounts and worse. Its just not worth the risk.

[KingIonTrueLove]

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen the opinion of the community on here being so... United on a topic.

Also, another issue that seems to have been revealed in this thread is that a lot of research choices don't really give anything:
"oh BOY I got engines now!... wait... I cant do anything with them..."
"I have learned the secrets of robotics!, what do you mean I cant actually make anything?"
"I just got the ability to make efficiency-3 modules... but after doing the math it seems that these things are nearly completely useless..."

[Engimage]

IMO this looks like another troll post from Kovarex to heat up the forums.

If not I'm gonna throw a rock at him myself.
There is no sense in making arguments here. Queue just should be there. If you really do not like it - gate it after some research (rofl) or make it an option with default off.
But this is definitely a mistake.

[ske]

I'm with kovarex this time. We don't deserve to have research queues. After all this game is designed to be a time waster in disguise. Automation just helps you wasting your time more efficiently but with the research the queue would mean that (((they))) have to work harder to provide us with more research items. Without the queue you always have to watch the game to continue with the next tech. Whoever still plays this game does not deserve to have a research queue. It's a show of power. Who will complain about it? Everybody. Who will stop playing the game because of it? Nobody. You see, we are powerless and waste even more time on the forum in addition to playing the game.

I could go on and an with what's wrong with the game but I have to end this post here because I need to click the next research item.

[Light]

Personally, I don't see the usefulness of the research queue in the vanilla game, but in modded games it becomes a godsend when there are 20+ researches in front of something important you want to tech toward. Then it's another 20-50+ for something in a completely different line down the tech tree. Rinse and repeat until 300+ researches later you've begun to get started on production for the rocket, without having finished half the tree yet.

Opening up the research menu every couple minutes throws off the flow of the game due to the constant pausing. I've since had research costs increase exponentially which aside from being more resource intensive also means less time being interrupted by research prompts, so it's worth it for that alone. But this is all strictly adhering to a heavily modded game where you'll be doing this for games that vastly exceed the time it takes to launch a rocket in vanilla and it starts to become insufferable.

I do like seeing the mod portal allowing conversations to notify the author, as the constant "Go to github" makes the entire thing insufferable for offering suggestions or bug reports. A third party service shouldn't be required so it's nice to see that improvement. All that's missing now is a tab to allow changelogs to be viewed given they can get pretty long at times and resulting in another "Go to github" situation.

[Gergely]

I have some solutions to the problems. First off, we need the research queue for late game, because most of the research the player does are just the endless upgrade tech powered by space science packs. The player is forced to check the tech tree as soon as one of them is done. However it is also a bad idea to give access to it early on, see the cons.

Here are my ideas:

• Make this a moddable feature. Simply add a value to the Force class like "research_queue_size", and a new Modifier for Technology Prototypes, and let mods handle the rest.
  This happened to Loaders and the Robot Battery Research.
  It would work in a similar fashion to the Character logistic slots research.
• Make this it's own late game research. The research queue can be unlocked when it's cons don't matter anymore, and when it is especially useful. And it's length could be upgraded.
  I personally recommend placing this right after "Lab research speed 6" and add the requirement of space science packs.
• Instead of the queue, consider adding an "Automatically chose next research" checkbox in the technology menu. It shows up after the player has launched a rocket, and is manageable by the scenario script.

None of these ideas are perfect, but let's make the number of hours spent implementing the research queue count.

[mophydeen]

BLAME

It's a sad day in Factorio history. No official queueing

[Aervanath]

I think that the arguments for removing the queue are entirely from the point of view of someone learning the game for the first time.
These are entirely valid arguments from that point of view, but Factorio is not a game that you play only once and then put away.
Now that we have space science, a player on their first playthrough could keep going through the infinite techs.
And let's face it, there's nothing about any of those techs that requires the player to stop and reconsider their strategy after every tech.
("Oh gosh, how do I deal with Mining Productivity 7? What does it do?" is not a thing that anyone will ever say.)

I saw a suggestion above that the research queue could be a tech unlocked with space science.
I personally think it could be unlocked with an earlier science than that, but I think that's on the right track, on par with some of the other quality of life things unlocked
I've also seen suggestions that it could be an option which is unlocked after you've beaten the game once, which I'm not really on board with, as this is basically what mods are for.

Speaking of mods:
The Research Queue mod (as I'm posting this) has been downloaded 52,751 times.
The Auto Research mod has been downloaded 138,008 times, more than double that.
While this is not the same level of popularity as, say, Bob's or Angel's mods, I think it still speaks to the fact that this is a feature that people want and will use.

[condylostylus]

Next research button is more powerful than biters? You can turn off biters but not the button! Even on rail world it keeps coming back!

[Nanolathe]

There's no such thing as "too convenient" in a game that is so damn complicated (in a good way, of course) - ESPECIALLY if it's a QoL feature.

There absolutely is a thing as "too convenient", especially when the QoL feature – as you put it – allows the player to not engage with an element of the game for extended periods of time (or ever, in the case of Auto-Research)

The research system is fundamentally broken if a majority of people wish to avoid dealing with it for 5, 10 or 50 research steps at a time. Now, we all know that this forum is a tiny, tiny representaion of the playerbase at large, so we can hardly draw concrete conclusions on this point. However, the overwhelming prevailence of posters here seeming to want to see much less of, or completely ignore the research screen, may be indicative of a larger problem.

[voddan]

@kovarex About that research queue thingy - I would consider copying what YouTube does with the auto-play button.
That is, remove the queue but put a switch that activates "auto-pick the next research" mode.
In this mode the game waits 30 seconds or so for you to pick the next research, and then auto-picks the cheapest one.
That very simple interface will cover your use case with researching all green science without taking away the joy of choosing the new research.

[Bokkie]

I don't care if there is a queu or not. Imho it's not that much effort to click on the next research.
I only play solo though, and haven't researched infinite like miners though.
So maybe I will come back on my opinion.

It won't hurt if there is a queu.

[TheVeteraNoob]

Switch the queue to only support two or 3 researches. If the other players are anything like me. They HATE the Ides of lost efficiency between the researches. And it would also remove that annoying research oveerwriting that happens all the time online. But like.. don't get me wrong I'm with them. Full research queue. May your air conditioning fail.

[Zool]

I think I have never seen a single discussion here that ended to something like 110 Pro vs 2 Cons here yet ^^

[osric_athanasius]

I would like to see the inclusion of the research queue in the 0.17 update. However, it probably should only be enabled by a setting.

I could not find a poll on this topic so I have created one in the general discussion.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=61915

[Ben R4m-Z]

Some of these guys have pitchforks....

And I personally agree with them, this feature would really help people who are playing the game and have one goal in mind and want to get there as fast as possible or without going through the motions again for the 100th time because the system makes you....
There are a lot of people who have far more hours on this game then I ever will and I can imagine what it must be like researching the same tech again and again by hand for each world they play, not to mention just letting an infinite research go forever if you so wish... That would have been amazing during the Clusterio event that took place back in April....
All in all I think the feature is a good idea, and can be invaluable for certain people. Even if you choose to add it in, maybe adding it as a option for the people who want it would prevent people who don't know the game from getting confused during their first playthrough...
Ben R4m-Z

[Murzik]

Queue has a great chance to be a powerful tool in a game like Factorio. It can have some features unlockable throughout the game (e.g. length), until in the late game it can be very useful for infinite research (e.g. advanced scheduling of different techs). It will be great option for speed runners and experienced players. Don't look at queue as some kind of potential disadvantage, but please consider how to make it an integral feature of the game.

Who is going to complain if the queue will be there? Nobody!